YMCA of Greater Brandywine is welcoming the community to a free Earth Day Festival on April 22 at 10AM. The festival will be held on the 54-acre campus of the Upper Main Line YMCA.
 

The Earth Day Festival is free for all to attend and will feature family-friendly activities including recycled art, bird walks, canoeing, bird house building, tree-planting, stream studies, face painting, and live music performed by Meadowlark, Em McKeever, and John Shirey. 

The event will also feature a vendor area highlighting environmentally focused businesses, organizations from around the state, and a food truck. 

 Prioritizing a Sustainable Future for Chester County 

“Earth Day is about celebrating our environmental treasures, protecting our natural resources, and looking to the next generation. As leaders in environmental education and preparing our young people for the challenges of the future, YGBW and UMLY are the perfect partners for our Earth Day Festival,” said Comitta, who also serves as co-chair of the Pennsylvania Climate Caucus.
 
25th Anniversary of Environmental Education 

With a commitment to delivering quality STEM and environmental education to local youth, it is fitting that YGBW serve as the co-host for the Earth Day Festival. In addition to offering weekly STEM classes at locations throughout the county, YGBW provides an expanded catalog of related offerings at UMLY – where the organization’s environmental education program first launched 25 years ago. 

Graduates of UMLY’s environmental education program have gone on to become science teachers, civil and environmental engineers, wildlife biologists, ornithologists and more. 

In honor of this anniversary, YGBW will give out 50 STEM classes beginning at 10 AM on April 22. Classes will take place in May and will be free for YGBW members and discounted by $24.99 for the community.  

 
55+ Year Commitment to Conservation  

An agreement between Natural Lands and YGBW permanently protects the land from future development, thus preserving natural resources – including woodlands, wetlands, a meadow, stream, and a pond at the headwaters of Darby Creek. 
 
“In 1966, Natural Lands partnered with the Upper Main Line YMCA to place a conservation easement on a portion of their campus to preserve it from development forever. This was the first use of this land protection tool in the state of Pennsylvania,” said Oliver Bass, president of Natural Lands.

In just the last five years, over 500 native trees have been planted to enhance the wildlife habitat, restore floodplain and increase the tree canopy on UMLY’s campus where over 130 species of birds have been observed and documented.  
 

Learn more about the Earth Day Festival on the YMCA of Greater Brandywine’s website.  

YMCA of Greater Brandywine